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had always confined himself, as he indifputably understood them well, rather than have blemished and belied his patriotism, by writing against the religion of his country. I shall give the reader a paffage that relates to the origin of criticism, which is curious and just. "When the perfuafive arts, which were neceffary to be cultivated among a people that were to be convinced before they acted, were grown thus in repute; and the power of moving the affections become the study and emulation of the forward wits and afpiring geniufes of the times; it would neceffarily happen, that many geniuses of equal fize and strength, though lefs covetous of public applause, of power, or of influence over mankind, would content themselves with the contemplation, merely, of these enchanting arts. These they would the better enjoy, the more they refined their tafte, and cultivated their ear.Hence was the origin of CRITICS; who, as arts and fciences advanced, would neceffarily come withal into repute; and being heard with fatisfaction in

their turn, were at length tempted to become authors, and appear in public. These were honoured with the name of Sophifts; a character which in early times was highly respected. Nor did the graveft philofophers, who were cenfors of manners, and critics of a higher degree, difdain to exert their criticism on the inferior arts; especially in those relating to fpeech, and the power of argument and perfuafion. When fuch a race as this was once rifen, 'twas no longer poffible to impofe on mankind, by what was fpecious and pretending. The public would be paid in no falfe wit, or jingling eloquence. Where the learned critics were fo well received, and philofophers themselves difdained not to be of the number; there could not fail to arife critics of an inferior order, who would fubdivide the several provinces of this empire *".

9. Know well each Ancient's proper character; His fable, subject, scope, in every page;

Religion, country, genius of his age †.

Characteristics, vol. I. 12mo. pag. 163.

+ Ver. 119.

FROM

FROM their inattention to these particulars, many critics, and particularly the French, have been guilty of great abfurdities. When Perrault impotently attempted to ridicule the first stanza of the first Olympic of Pindar, he was ignorant that the poet, in beginning with the praises of WATER *, alluded to the philofophy of Thales, who taught that water was the principle of all things; and which philosophy, Empedocles the Sicilian, a cotemporary of Pindar, and a fubject of Hiero to whom Pindar wrote, had adopted in his beautiful poem. Homer and the Greek tragedians have been likewise cenfured, the former for protracting the Iliad after the death of Hector; and the latter, for continuing the AJAX and PHOENISSÆ, after the deaths of their respective heroes. But the cenfurers did not confider the importance of burial among the ancients; and that the action of the Iliad would have been imperfect without a description of the funeral rites of Hector and Patroclus: as the two tragedies, without thofe of Polynices and

*

Αριςον μιν ΥΔΩΡ.
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Eteocles:

Eteocles: for the ancients esteemed a deprivation of fepulture to be a more fevere calamity than death itself. It is obfervable that this circumftance did not occur to POPE*, when he endeavoured to justify this conduct of Homer, by only faying, that as the anger of Achilles does not die with Hector, but perfecutes his very remains, the poet ftill keeps up to his fubject by defcribing the many effects of his anger, 'till it is fully fatisfied and that for this reason, the two last books of the Iliad may be thought not to be excrefcencies, but effential to the poem. I will only add, that I do not know an author whofe capital excellence fuffers more from the reader's not regarding his climate and country, than the incomparable Cervantes. There is a striking propriety in the madness of Don Quixote, not frequently taken notice of; for Thuanus informs us, that MADNESS is a common diforder among the Spaniards at the latter part of life, about the age of which the knight is reprefented. "Sur la

* Iliad xxiii. Note 1.

fin de fes jours Mendozza devint furieux, comme font d'ordinaire les Espagnols *.

10. Still with itself compar'd, his text peruse,

And let your comment be the Mantuan Muse †.

ALTHOUGH perhaps it may feem impoffible to produce any new observations on Homer and Virgil, after fo many volumes of criticism as have been spent upon them, yet the following remarks have a novelty and penetration in them that may entertain; efpecially, as the treatise from which they are taken is extremely scarce. " Quæ variæ inter fe notæ atque imagines animorum, a principibus utriufque populi poetis, Homero et Virgilio, mirificè exprimuntur. Siquidem Homeri duces et reges rapacitate, libidine, atque anilibus queftibus, lacrymifque puerilibus, Græcam levitatem et inconstantiam referunt. Virgiliani vero principes, ab eximio poeta, qui Romanæ feveritatis faftidium, et Latinum fupercilium verebatur, et ad heroum

* Perroniana et Thuana, a Cologne, 1695, pag. 431.

+ Ver. 128.

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populum

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